Luis J. Rodriguez's first story collection draws national acclaim I ,\\\1111: 'j/lil/ií: I · .- - Gr\\ I 'iJI:W .. I=I'.-:: 11:jl . r'i" I R ," E p . __1--1.._ _1;, ; "'1" - - - _. j.".,:_:.... _...:_ .. ,T..... -.. ""'*'1Jt. I_ : .- .. .,' .:- " , '.... :!!.' 'f.\ ._ : .. ...I' '::__ "" ,,1i , J' ;, ; I . .. ;. - .... 7 ;I of . . ., I,', .. ,_ .::,, or ,'.. ... _... . -," - -I, . ..; .! ',I ;'"!.'1{' ; LUI5 J. RDDRI6U[2 : Author or the crltlcslll,l scclslmed bli:'stsellli:'r AlwaL,js Runnlne;;. Ls Vida Loea: Gane;; DaL,js In L.A. l1f' \\\\ : I ! ! : ! ! : i 1 ! : : "A gritty and buoyant story collection." -Denver Post "Like Junot Diaz's Drown, Rodriguez's stories overlap and intersect, as if an omniscient tour guide is giving us a walking tour of the block." -San Francisco Chronicle "These tales overflow with intriguing characters who tell their stories in beautifully crafted prose." -The Fort Worth Star-Telegram r@Yo An I mprtnt of HarperCollinsPublishers www.fayobooks.com 46 THE NEW YOR.KER, JULY I, 2002 THE SPORTING SCENE THE MOR.ALIST Can Lennox Lewis redeem the world ofprojèssional boxing? BY DAVID REMNICK " !! F rom distant shores, it is hard to fig- ure out why so few Britons have proved supreme in the prize ring since the passing of the Regency era and the advent of the padded glove. An age of futility has followed William Hazlitt's patriotic contention that "the noble sci- ence of boxing is all our own." England has certainly not lost its taste for the fight-there are still would - bes sparring in gyms from Merseyside to Brixton- and yet most of the British moderns, especially the heavyweights, pale, bony men like Henry Cooper, have been no- table mainly for a stoutness of soul that is inevitably undermined by a propensity to bleed. Until now, the last British champion among the heavies was Robert Prome- theus Fitzsimmons, who won his title in Carson City; Nevada, in 1897 (a blow to the solar plexus doubled up "Gentleman Jim" Corbett), and lost it two years later to James Jeffries at Coney Island. Fitz- simmons was not a champion of the first rank. Nor was he an impressive speci- men. He was spindly, knock-kneed, and rapidly losing his carrot-colored hair. "Stripped for action he looked like an elderly red pelican," O. E Snelling, the estimable boxing historian, wrote. To make things worse for loyal Britons, Fitzsimmons was an inconstant na- tional. He and his family had left En- gland for New Zealand when he was nine, and he died, in 1917, in Chicago- a citizen of the United States. Lennox Lewis, the current heavy- weight champion, is a legit Brit. He is thirty-six and was born in England; he spent his childhood in the East End. But the story grows motley from there. Lennox was an adolescent in Kitchener, Ontario, won an Olympic gold medal for Canada, in 1988, and, since his parents are Jamaican, is, by his own description, "part Rasta man." Lewis speaks in what might be called High Plains-Cockney- Bob MarIe)', an accent rounded off by , , I i _.. I. 11. the influence of the high-rent precincts he now inhabits in Hertfordshire and Miami, to say nothing of the Concorde waiting lounge. Lewis, in other words, is a man of the fluid modem world. This is not something the English customarily appreciate: to leave London and make a success elsewhere is ordinarily a mark of betrayal. And yet at Lewis's fights, wher- ever they may be, his most ardent fans, his most reliable supporters, are British. When Lewis fought Evander Holyfield at the Garden three years ago and the judges robbed him of a decision-they called it, preposterousl)', a draw after Len- nox had pummelled Evander all night- Eighth Avenue was suddenly awash in men in Union Jack T-shirts and Bob Hoskins sharkskins, who improvised pleasantly obscene chants limning their outrage and their undying affection for Lewis. It is no fault of Lewis's, but the heavyweight championship, like the British throne, is an ever more marginal office. Just as Elizabeth II struggles to dampen the News of the Wórld impres- sion of her unruly clan, Lewis has, for years, been haunted by his own tabloid ghost, Mike Tyson. No matter that Tyson has not been himse]f as an atWete since his incarceration, in the early nine- ties, for raping a beauty queen in In- dianapolis. Somehow the legacy of T y- son's youthfW ferocity-his string of one- and two-round knockouts when he was barely out of his teens-coupled with his penchant for theatrically toxic be- havior and interviews scripted by a hip- hop Jean Genet, grabbed whatever little cultural fascination was left to the fight game. Lewis was justly convinced that he would not be acknowledged a "su- preme sweet scientist" (he loves the Re- gency terminology) until he had de- feated Tyson. On January 22nd, the fighters and their myriad seconds gathered at the Hudson Theatre, on West Forty-fourth